NEED TO CATCH up? The Journal brings you a round-up of today’s news.

IRELAND

Joe Conlan, Gaiety Pantomime Dame, holds one of the four An Post stamps issued to celebrate 150 years of opening nights at Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre. Leon Farrell / Photocall Ireland Leon Farrell / Photocall Ireland / Photocall Ireland

• The government agreed to sign up to a global agreement that would increase the State’s corporate tax rate for large companies to 15%.
• The State pension age will rise by three months each year from 2028 until it hits 67 in 2031 under new government proposals.
• The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has requested that services within the intensive care unit at St Vincent’s University Hospital “are curtailed until such a time that the unit is adequately staffed” following a report on chronic staff shortages by TheJournal. 
• The Dáil approved the extension of legislation that gives emergency powers to the minister to introduce vaccine passports for indoor dining until 9 January.
• Irish rail launched an investigation after a government TD spoke about hearing a group of young men chanting about raping a woman on a nighttime DART train in Dublin yesterday evening.
• Nine in 10 nurses and midwives feel mentally exhausted as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to new research. 
• An EU move to develop new proposals on the operation of Brexit’s Northern Ireland Protocol is a welcome breakthrough, the leader of the DUP said.
• A building site in Cork was sealed off by gardaí following the discovery of skeletal remains.
• A petition opposing a proposal to build a hotel beside Dublin’s famous Cobblestone pub has received almost 20,000 signatures in less than 24 hours.

INTERNATIONAL 

The 100-year-old former Nazi camp Josef S covers his face as he sits at the court room in Brandenburg, Germany Markus Schreiber / PA Markus Schreiber / PA / PA

#GERMANY: A 100-year-old former concentration camp guard who became the oldest person to be tried for Nazi-era crimes in Germany will not speak about his time at the site, his lawyer said at the trial opening today.

#NOBEL PRIZE: Novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah was awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature for his work which has highlighted colonialism and the fate of refugees. 

#TEXAS: A federal judge ordered Texas to suspend the most restrictive abortion law in the US, which since September has banned most abortions in the nation’s second-most populous state.

PARTING SHOT 

The Red Hot Chilli Peppers announced a Dublin date on their world tour next summer earlier today. 

They’ll play Marlay Park on 29 June with support from Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals, and Thundercat.